The present invention relates to a vacuum pump that comprises a housing that is provided with an inlet opening, and a vibration absorber that consists of a suspension body being encompassed by an absorber jacket.
In vacuum pumps, vibrations of the components, like rotating components for example, effecting pumping of the gases can not be entirely avoided. It is therefore known to employ vibration absorbers if a vacuum pump of this kind needs to be connected to sensitive instrumentation, like electron microscopes, analytical equipment or alike. Known vibration absorbers exhibit a vacuum-tight suspension body, for example a bellows section made of stainless steel which is encompassed by an absorber jacket made of an elastomer material. Both face sides of the suspension body are equipped with one flange each. In the fitted state one of the flanges is joined to the inlet flange of the vacuum pump; the second flange is joined to the corresponding flange on the instrument connected in each instance.
Of disadvantage is the fact that the usage of known vibration absorbers results in a relatively great overall height of the system, in particular when axially pumping vacuum pumps, turbomolecular pumps for example, are involved.
It is the task of the present invention to reduce the overall height of an evacuation system of the aforementioned kind.
This task is solved by the present invention through the characterising features of the patent claims.
Already direct joiningxe2x80x94by welding, for examplexe2x80x94the delivery side of the suspension body to the casing of the vacuum pump will result in a reduced overall height of the entire system since one pair of flanges may be omitted. If, however, the inside dimension of the suspension body exceeds the outside diameter of the vacuum pump""s casing, then there exists the possibility of reducing the overall height even further by arranging the vibration absorber so that it encompasses the vacuum pump""s casing.
One advantage of the present invention is that it reduces the overall height of an evacuation system.
Still further advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art upon reading and understanding the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments.